Challenge & Objectives
Athena came to us for a new website build, and for an ongoing Support & Maintenance plan.
Their old website was outdated, and didn’t really do justice to their exceptionally well rated care homes. They needed a new, modern design, which represented their credibility and their upmarket, high quality homes. This was essential to aid in their continued growth; attracting new private residents.
They were already happy with WordPress as their CMS, which their old website had been built on, but knew we could offer a WordPress experience that would be much easier to and use – frontend and backend wise.
The team at Athena needed a site which would grow with them, and which would allow them to update and add to with ease, allowing them to market the homes more effectively and effortlessly.
We identified some usability issues in the early stages of the project, and so the new website needed to address these.
The new website needed to showcase their 5 current care homes, each with different offerings and speciality care, and scale with them, as they add new homes, without the need for additional development. It also needed to be built with SEO best practice at its foundations, to help them better reach their target audience.
Solution
Wireframes & Visual Design
The process began with a workshop to identify the website and stakeholder requirements.
From the findings of the workshop, we were able to wireframe the key page templates for desktop and mobile views, showing the client where important features would sit in relation to each other, and how user journeys would flow through the site.
Once the client was happy with these, we moved on to the visual design, again, for both desktop and mobile, giving the client how their new responsive website would appear on different devices. The designs focused on showcasing Athena’s credibility, and their culture and personality.
We also mapped each configuration to an image (where available) so that users can view what their chosen item will look like in their chosen configuration.
Clear And Easy To Use Navigation
An important usability issue we had identified in the earlier phase of the project, was that their old site was tricky to navigate. This was a particular concern due to a portion of their target audience being less digitally savvy. To solve this, we created a sticky navigation with scroll and back to top functionality.
We also made use of FAQ sections, and a central FAQ page, to answer any common questions users may have.
Clearer Call To Actions
Something else missing from their old site was clear CTAs. We made sure to use prominent CTAs and visible contact information throughout the site. Making Athena easy to contact was a priority.
Better Use Of Social Proof
Athena’s homes have very high ratings and they have received glowing testimonials. We wanted to make sure that these were featured more prominently, alongside greater information on each of the homes.
Showcasing Their Homes
The ‘our homes’ main page dynamically pulls through key information on each care home, including location, types of specialist care available, the homes Carehome.co.uk rating, along with CTAs for booking a visit, and to see more information. This page is set up to pull through any future homes Athena add to their group.
The individual home pages provide the user with all of the important information they might need. The address and phone number are prominently displayed at the top of the page, along with CTAs to book a visit (an important Covid measure for arranging visits with residents using integration with a third party booking tool), and to arrange a viewing for prospective residents.
These pages give information on the home selected, it’s grounds and its facilities, along with the specialist types of care available.
Each of these pages using integrations with the Care Quality Commission and Carehome.co.uk, pulls through their ratings, and reviews. Feature alongside these is a testimonial.
The page clearly lists features, benefits and amenities in an easy to digest format, and below these, a virtual tour of the home is featured. This has a clear call to action below, for users to arrange a viewing.
Information on activities run by the home is presented, along with information on the nutrition focused catering.
Then, for a more personal and human touch, a profile of the Home Manager is featured, including a photograph.
GDPR Compliant Data Capture For Marketing
The Athena team wanted to simplify their marketing process, and be better able to track specific marketing metrics and goal conversions. So GDPR compliant data capture was a must. We integrated all forms with Mailchimp, to make things easier for the team, and ensure goal tracking was set up with Google Analytics and Tag Manager.
The various data capture points include:
- Brochure Download Automation
- Request a viewing form
- Newsletter Opt-In
Ease Of Use & Future Proofing
We created an easy backend experience for the Athena team to be able to modify and add new pages and content without the need for technical knowledge. As with all our builds, we also included a set of training videos, so that they could train their wider team or any new starters with ease.
Across all areas of the site, we made sure that it will be able to grow with Athena as a business.
Job Management System
Hiring outstanding care staff is obviously a key priority for Athena, so we included a ‘Work With Us’ page, integrated with Indeed for easy vacancy management.
This page clearly sets out the work benefits Athena offer their employees, along with information on culture, and current vacancies.
Contact Us
Continuing the themes of easy contact and clear CTAs, the contact page has a simple form with drop down selectors for the home in question and the type of enquiry, along with important GDPR tick boxes.
We also used the Google Map API to create a selector with each of the 5 homes, which displays each home’s position on the map, along with contact details.
Technology & Plugins
Aside from WordPress, the website uses Gravity Forms to manage form data and personalisation.
For industry compliance, we integrated Care Quality Commission and Carehome.co.uk ratings and reviews.
For easy management and advertisement of roles, the website is integrated with Indeed.
We used the Google Maps API for the contact page map feature.
Elementor is used for easy on-brand page building for the Athena team, on certain post types. On others we used Advanced Custom Fields.
Yoast is included to simplify on-page optimisation for ongoing SEO efforts, and Google Tag Manager for ease of implementing tools and code.
Events Calendar Pro is used to manage the Exhibitions section.
Find out more about the plugins and custom integrations we’ve created here.
